from the kill-freedom-‘for-the-children’ dept
Like too many legislators, Arkansas politicians have decided it’s time to codify irrational hatred. To do this, they pretend they have a sudden and urgent new the obligation to protect “children” harder than they have ever been protected before from the encroachment of an alternative point of view.
Like so many other states, the Arkansas government supports obscenity laws that exist to declare content that one does not personally like as “obscene”. Then he went further, harassing librarians in public libraries with civil and criminal penalties for not practicing adequate censorship.
And, like many similar hate efforts, this codification of hate died in federal court. Public library plaintiffs were able to secure a temporary injunction blocking Arkansas’ book ban from taking effect last summer. The catch is: the law will be blocked only until the government presents a revised case for expanded censorship. If it can be demonstrated that there is a legitimate government interest in banning books that these legislators feel are harmful to children, the law can be reinstated.
However, if incompetent demonstrate this, librarians and library associations will be free to continue to open their libraries without government intervention – what they have been doing for years before Donald Trump took office in 2016 and entered the worst era called “conservatism.” Since then, book challenges and book bans have become a daily occurrence in the Land of the Free. And all in the hands of the party that vowed here to defeat censorship again.
This isn’t the only lawsuit the Arkansas government is facing. Others, filed by parents who objected to the First Amendment right of access being undermined by the government forcibly moving some content to the “adult only” area of the library (and, of course, this content almost always targets LGBTQ + authors and / or critical content. History of racism long America) is still being done.
But this has come to an expected end, as reported by the Associated Press:
A federal judge on Monday struck down an important part of the Arkansas law that would allow criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “dangerous” material to minors.
U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks found that elements of the law were unconstitutional.
As always, the Associated Press seems to be able to access the court’s decision, but refused show rule with the reader.
Here is my full opinion [PDF]it belongs to me: someone who not only contributes to RECAP, but also knows how to search.
All of the laws — one starting with a signature allegedly written in crayon by Governor (and former Donald Trump PR flack) Sarah Huckabee Sanders — have yet to be blocked. A small part of it is life. But the mandate that was criticized in court gives the original order is no longer on the table.
Here’s what the court said about the law in its first ruling:
The job of a librarian requires a commitment to freedom of speech and the celebration of different viewpoints unlike any other profession. Librarians manage collections of reading materials for the entire community, and in doing so, they reinforce the fundamental principles upon which this country was founded. According to the United States Supreme Court, “Public libraries pursue the worthy mission of facilitating learning and cultural enrichment.”
[…]
The librarian’s enemy is the censor who judges dissenting opinions as harmful, immoral, or wrong.
Public libraries in the 21st century are funded and overseen by state and local governments, with the help of taxpayer dollars. However, public libraries cannot be mistaken for simply being an arm of the state. By virtue of its mission to provide citizens with access to a wide array of information, viewpoints, and content, the public library is certainly not a creation of the state; it’s a person.
And this is what they are saying now, because it says that libraries and librarians are not legitimate.
[B]y prescribe mandatory procedures for evaluating challenges, Section 5 actually prevents libraries from relying on their already widely used policies for responsiveness to patron feedback., including negative feedback, without allowing too many challenges or allowing the opinion of a vocal few to dictate what is generally available to the public.
And this imposition – especially when connected to civil and criminal penalties – cannot be considered constitutional, not with the amount of damage done to the First Amendment. The government cannot argue that this kind of censorship is something that free speech jurisprudence cannot reach by pretending that it is not within its protections. (Emphasis in original.)
The State’s Section 5 defense raises the argument that constitutionally protected censorship of speech is acceptable because of every choice decision that affects the public library’s collection – from the purchase of original materials by librarians, to the placement of books on special shelves or in the back. locked door, to remove outright from the collection-ie “government speech” is not subject to constitutional oversight.
But Section 5 has nothing to do with library curation decisions, so if that decision is government speech, the State’s argument in this regard is without merit. First, no one disputes that librarians are violating patrons’ First Amendment rights through curation decisions. Second, it restricts access to books in public library collections or removes books from the collection because of content or point of view-which Section 5 permits, if not encourages here-infringes the First Amendment and does not qualify as protected government speech.
Summing it all up, the court said that two clauses of the book ban law were invalid under the US Constitution.
Here, it is clear that there are no conditions that can be applied in sections 1 and 5. The State has not tried to adjust Section 1 based on the interpretation of the Arkansas Supreme Court of “danger to minors,” although the State has been on notice of the broad sweep of this definition since 2004. In addition, section 5 contains some undefined terms that invite censorship decisions based on content.
A permanent injunction is in place. The state can continue to enforce what is left of the law, but what is left will not allow these fanatical legislators to achieve their goal of removing content libraries they do not like. I imagine they will try to rewrite the law. But if they can’t get it right the first time, they probably won’t find a legally credible basis for mass censorship a second time. Unfortunately, this nation is loaded with bigots, including a sizable voting bloc that continues to elect bigots with the sole purpose of imposing their point of view on every other Arkansas resident unfortunate enough to share the state.
What has been struck down here will be resurrected. However, at this point, there is still no way the government can do it. But with Donald Trump back in office with a boatload of embarrassing lackeys in tow, who knows what the Constitution will look like half a decade from now.
Filed Under: 1st amendment, arkansas, book ban, bookseller, censorship, for children, free speech, library, obscenity, sarah huckabee sanders
